Great Wall of China Report

The Great Wall of China is truly one of the greatest architectural achievements in recorded history. The longest structure ever built, it is about 6,700 kilometers (4,163 miles) long and made entirely by hand. This wall is said to be visible from the moon. It crosses Northern China, from the East coast to Central China (Karls, 1). This massive wall is not only one of the ancient wonders of the world, but it also has been the inspiration of many writers and artists. With a history of more than 2,000 years, some of the sections of the Great Wall are now in ruins or even entirely disappeared. However, it is still one of the most appealing attractions all around the world, because of its architectural greatness and historical significance.

The Great Wall's construction began in 221 BC under the emperor Meng Tien, of the Chin Dynasty (Twitchett, 2). Continual invasions and wars from the barbarians to the North drove the emperor to order its construction to protect the newly unified China. It started at Lintao and extended to Liaotung, reaching a distance of more than 10,000 Li. After crossing the Yellow River, it wound northward, touching the Yang Mountains (Twitchett, 2). Although the wall is considered to be well under 10,000 Li (one Li is approximately a third of a mile) it was truly an amazing accomplishment (Twitchett, 2). Meng Tien employed some 300,000 men in the creation of the original section of the wall. The building of such a massive wall would definitely be a huge task. A wall that stretches through the wilderness is not easily accessed by supply lines, unlike a highway that creates its own supply line (Delahoye, 3). There was also a massive loss of lives during the construction of the wall, due to widespread disease and injury (Delahoye, 3). In fact it is an Ancient Chinese myth, that each stone in the wall stands for a life lost in the wall's construction (Delahoye, 3). It is recorded that Meng Tien's section of the wall took only ten years to build, but it is believed that it actually took a substantially greater amount of time (Delahoye, 3). After Meng Tien's original construction the wall was far from completed. Other walls were added to and encompassed within The Great Wall. The last major work on the wall was completed during the Ming Dynasty around 1500 (Delahoye, 3). The Great Wall extends around 1,500 miles in an east-west direction. It travels through four provinces (Hebei, Shanxi, Shaanxi, and Gansu) beginning in northern Hebei and ending in the northwest Gansu province (Delahoye, 3).

The Great Wall is built of many different materials, from granite blocks to tamped earth (Ledoux, 4). These materials ranging from 15 to 50 feet high with a base width between 15 and 30 feet, the wall had guard towers spread along the entire length of the wall (Ledoux, 4). The Great Wall of China was built by stacking mud or clay bricks one by one on top of each other. The brick was first produced in a sun-dried form at least 6,000 years ago, and is the prototype of a wide range of clay building products used today (Ledoux, 4). It is the small building unit in the form of a rectangular block, formed from clay, shale, or other mixtures and burned in a oven, to produce strength, hardness, and heat resistance (Ledoux, 4). The original concept of ancient brick-makers was that the unit should not be bigger than what one man could easily handle (Ledoux, 4).

To understand the Great Wall it is necessary to know the many components of the wall, and their purposes. The Great Wall was renovated from time to time after the Qin Dynasty. A major renovation started with the founding of the Ming Dynasty in 1368, and took 200 years to complete (Karls, 1). The wall seen today is almost exactly the result of this effort. With a total length of over 6,000 kilometers, it extends to the Jiayu Pass in Gansu Province, and in the west to the mouth of the Yalu River in the Liaoning Province in the east (Karls, 1)....

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History
Excitement abounds regarding the vicissitude of the Wall of the Qin, Han, and Ming Dynasties.The GreatWall was originally built in the Spring and Autumn, and Warring States Periods as a defensive fortification by the three states: Yan, Zhao and Qin. It went through constant extensions and repairs in later dynasties. It began as independent walls for different states when it was first built, and did not become the "Great" wall until the Qin Dynasty. Emperor Qin Shihuang succeeded in his effort to have the walls joined together to fend off the invasions from the Huns in the north. Since then, the Wall has served as a monument of the Chinese nation throughout history. |
Culture
GreatWall...

...Text 2
The GreatWall of China, known as the ‘Long Wall’ in Chinese, is the longest man-made structure in
the world, stretching across northern China, from Shanhaiguan in the east to Lop Nur in the west. It is
said that the work and materials required to build the GreatWall was equal to 30 great pyramids in
Egypt, and that about 2 to 3 million people died while building it.
The wall’s history began about 2,200 years ago, when a Chinese leader, Emperor Qin, formed seven
groups of Chinese to work independently on constructing walls to protect their country from
Mongolian invaders, people from the north who wanted to enter China and take control of it. He then
connected their shorter seven walls into a single wall about 4,830 kilometers long.
Emperor Qin used 300,000 men to build the wall and it took about 10 years. The men built across
deserts and mountains, some as high as 2,700 meters! One part of the wall, about 7 meters high, goes
across 96 kilometers of mountains. The men built about 40 kilometers each month, or about 1.3
kilometers per day. Later, during the Ming Dynasty, from 1368-1644, the GreatWall was repaired
and made longer. The wall was built with stone, and rice flour was used as mortar to hold the...

...have stood the test of time like the wall. It is easily one of the oldest, if not the oldest type of fortification built by man and is still in use today. As use of gunpowder weapons increased, the effectiveness of a massive, stone wall began to steadily decline. However, during the middle ages, people all over the world utilized walls as a highly effective way of keeping your enemy right where you wanted him, on the outside of one's castle, city, or empire. If asked to give an example of the longest and biggest wall ever built, none could argue against The GreatWall of China being the champion of walls. But is size really the only indicator of a wall's effectiveness, or is it possible that China's GreatWall was really not so great at all?
To give an idea of just how long the GreatWall is, if all its bricks were taken apart and laid in a ring around the equator, it would create a wall 5 feet high and 3 feet wide stretching all the way around the globe. While actual estimates vary depending on how the measurements are done, the GreatWall is said to be anywhere from 2,400 km (about 1,500 mi) long to 6,400 km (4,000 mi), or longer. The average size of the wall is 6.5 meters (21.3 feet) wide at the base sloping to 5.8 meters (19...